Again tales from the Grimm
Brothers, Perrault, Anderson and others have been tweaked, twisted and updated
to resonate with today’s high school crowd.

The Little Match Girl now sells CDs to stoners for fifty cents a pop in a
bleak inner city. (No happy endings for
this one.)

Red Riding Hood tells her story to her mom in modern lingo that is a hoot. Who wouldn't want to know what it’s like to
be swallowed by a wolf? Well, not me but
RRH does…

Anyhow
we chat and he gives me his e-mail and some more insincere compliments and the
next time I see him he’s in Gram’s bed and she’s, like, inside him! Wait till I
tell Amber that! I am so sick of hearing
about how her grandmother goes to Cabo all the time and paraglides and scubas.
Those things are like nothing compared to being swallowed whole. And it kind of makes me want to know what
that’s like. What? No, as a matter of
fact, if everybody at my school got swallowed whole I wouldn't want to. It’s lame if everybody does it, Mom. How old are you, anyway?

A cursed prince in East of the Sun and West of the Moon is
saved from marrying a troll princess by his MOTL (my own true love, in case you're wondering).

In The Emperor’s New Clothes, the little boy who saw the
that Emperor run around naked after being conned by shady tailors eventually
gives in so that he too ends up wearing invisible pants that he’s careful to
keep from dragging on the ground because they are new and beautiful. It’s really
hard to withstand the forces of public opinion.

Also included are
Cinderella’s stepsisters in The
Stepsisters, Rapunzel, Thumbelina, Diamonds and Toads, The
Princess and the Pea, Little Thumb,
Bluebeard, Rumplestiltskin, The Frog
Prince and many more.

I didn't know every story
Koertge included or caught all his references.
For example, I’m unfamiliar with the Ogre
Queen but found her story interesting regardless. Unhappy in her marriage
to Prince Charming who married her for money,overlooking her predilection for
eating children and she ends up running a consulting firm in Washington getting
work from Congress and the Pentagon.

The illustrations are black
and white paper cuts with lots of sharp angles that add tremendously to the dark, creepy atmosphere of
these tales .

The tales are told for the
most part as narrative verse. It’s a
slim volume that is a quick read that will get under your skin in a way that
Disney never could. The Stinky Cheeseman
may have been a first of its kind (and definitely appropriate for younger kids,
grades 3 and up) but Koertge has taken this on for the older crowd that offers
new perspectives and lingers in the mind.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Janet has recently taken on learning about instructional technologies for the classroom. Part of her time has been learning about iPads, their usefulness as a classroom tool and related apps. We've gotten into a few discussions about some of the questions that arise when looking at some of these 'educational tools.' Do these apps add anything to the reading experience? Are they educational, entertaining, distracting or altogether off-putting? Do they replace the physical book? What is lost without the physical book if anything? and so on.

Finding current books that direct you to worthy apps is important however fleeting their relevancy.

With my new-found interest in iPads and
apps (OK, who am I kidding, I have always been a bit of a geek….), I have been
discovering books that are about technology and technology integration into the
classroom. One could argue that by the time a book gets through the stages of
production, at least 30,000 new apps will have been introduced in the iTunes
store (that’s a conservative estimate – a quick Google tells me that according
to about.com,
apps available on iTunes have gone from 50,000 in June of 2009 to 775,000 in
January of 2013 – other sites cite different numbers. The point is, it is a quickly
growing market). However, whether these apps are useful or achieve learning
goals can be difficult to measure without some reading and thinking about
incorporating them into the classroom.

I have been reading several books about
technology and technology in the classroom to help me with understanding this
process. Tammy has asked me to review some of what I am finding.

There are several reasons why I liked this
book. To start, the authors have not covered huge numbers of apps. They have
selected 5 to 8 apps in each category and expanded on how a student or teacher
might use this in learning and research.

I also liked the fact that the
chapters were broken down by subject area. For example, the Social Studies
chapter lists 6 apps and gives examples of the types of information that a
student might gather from the app, or how the teacher might use the app in
their classroom.

Each chapter ends with a brief synopsis of each app listed in
the chapter, along with the URL, the purchase price and the device
availability. (If you are Canadian, some of the apps listed are American based,
so might be of limited use in some aspects of the curriculum – but I am continually
on the lookout for quality Canadian apps that mirror some of the American ones
I have found – I’ll keep you posted.)

Finally, the authors have not limited
themselves to curriculum subject. They have devoted several chapters to basics,
literacy, apps and tools for sharing and talking and tools for creating.

This book might get dated quickly – but the
authors’ principles about what to look for in an app and why it is important to
integrate them into the classroom mirrors much of my thinking on the subject.

And the other reason I liked this book? Most chapters feature at least one app
that I thought would be great for classroom use. Nothing like positive
reinforcement in a field where I feel like as much as I have learned, I still
have so far to go!!

Thursday, June 20, 2013

A Call to Creativity: writing, reading, and inspiring students in an age of standardization by Luke Reynolds is a call to English teachers not to abandon creativity (both in how they teach and in student work) in the pursuit of meeting standards.Reynolds is a secondary (grades 7 to 12) English teacher who, based on a hunch, decided to challenge his grade 11 students with an assignment that would require them to "craft 50 pages of their own original, creative fiction" otherwise known as the novella assignment.His reasoning was based on wanting to incorporate more creativity into his teaching and students' work and that this 2 month project would get his students to "learn effective writing strategies and hone their skills far better than they would in the more traditional, widely marketed test-preparation curriculums". He provides the assignment in an appendix. (In fact, roughly 1/3 of the book is appendices that provide support for teaching his creative assignments if you should choose to accept this mission.)All of his students hand in the 50 pages with

dramatic increases in their writing abilities. Their test scores that spring showed strong gains, and their attitudes toward writing had improved dramatically. It became common for me to overhear students talking in the hallways about what would happen next in their novellas, and it was also common to come to class on a day when their next two pages were due, only to find that many students had instead written six, seven, or eight.

What comes across is Reynolds' passion and commitment to trying to do more than just teach-to-the-test. He wants to enliven his classes and engage his students and feels that taking a creative approach will do this. He lives in the real world where accountability is to meet state mandated standards. He shows us how he strives to do both.This is a quick read with ideas worth considering.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Janet Hutchinson is a colleague and kindred spirit when it comes to children's literature. She also works a day and half in the library in the school which her children have or are attending here in Calgary. Her experiences there provide her (and me by extension) the opportunity to see what teachers and kids do with the books we promote.(PS.** IMHO = in my humble opinion : I didn't know this particular 'txting' short cut. LOL, I'm such a Luddite.)TammyThese are a few of my favourite…….books

It’s clean-up time at the school and all
the books that have been under students’ beds, in their desks and at the back
of their locker, underneath the sweaty gym gear and the forgotten lunch from
January, are starting to make their way back to the library. As they get
checked in, and as I do the inventory, I am amazed anew at the books that I
have not seen on the shelf since September. As fast as they come in, they have
gone out again, or been renewed and requested over and over.

Two books in particular are ones that I
really like and it gives me a small quiet thrill to see that, in these cases, I
have selected books that resonate so strongly with students. As I inventory, I
notice the number of excellent (**IMHO) books that have not been taken out much,
or at all, this year, so I am slowly developing a plan to display and promote some
of them more prominently, in hopes that, maybe next year, there will be new
favourites.

But back to the book titles:

The first book is Wonderstruck by Brian
Selznick. I love the combination graphic(ish) novel and prose. The book tells
the story of two youngsters – Ben, whose story is told in words – and Rose,
whose story is told in pictures. Both children are involved in quest to find
that which is missing in their lives. For Ben, it’s his father, his only
surviving parent since his mother was killed in a car accident. For Rose, it’s
her mother – she has left her daughter and remarried. Selznick takes these two plot lines and
beautifully weaves them together, alternating between the past and the present
and between words and pictures culminating in a very satisfying and lovely
conclusion.If the reader has weak reading skills, this
is still a story they can consume easily (although the thickness of the book
might be daunting. But the last student to take it out shyly admitted that she
had had it out several times so far this year, but that she had to take it out
“one more time” before school ended.

The second book that has not stayed in the
library is the book Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzberg. Intended as a picture
book (or at least presented in that format) the book is a life lesson contained
in about 15 pages. Each page presents a spill or a blob or a tear that the
author then turns into a great piece of art.
The message can be read in several ways: From mistakes come things of
beauty; Creativity can come from messes; mistakes are just opportunities
reshaped. A torn page? Becomes an alligator’s smile. A blob of paint? Becomes a
goofy looking animal. What I loved about this book is that it removes the need
for perfection and can be inspirational to anyone who reads it. And although
lots of the “little kids” took it out – lots of the “big” kids did too. Proving (at least to me) that good picture
book crosses ages, stages and grades.

I hope that with active promotion and more
involvement with each grade that this list is longer next year. But it’s still
a pretty good list. I think.

But what if those weren't the answers you were looking for? “Good
answer”, you’d say “but not what I'm looking for. What else?”

You repeat the question a
few times trying to emphasis certain words to give a clue as to what you’re
looking for “Why do Monarch butterflies fly
south for the winter?”

No one is picking up on
it.

The answer when I finally
give it (I learned to make them wait for it) elicits the expected groans and a few chuckles.

“Because it’s too far to
walk.”

Now you have to know that
these weren't elementary or junior high students. This was a group of university student teachers (most
with science backgrounds) at 8 a.m. on a Monday morning.

What was I doing?

Besides being very nervous, I
was jump-starting a workshop to introduce students to the Doucette Library’s
fantastic collection of science kits, children’s literature and professional
resources that would support their classroom teaching.

I was tremendously nervous
doing this as I felt I was opening myself up to ridicule. But I knew I wanted something that would
change the expectations of the students in these workshops. It was not going to be an hour of me blah,
blah, blah-ing about all the wonderful things they could find in the
Doucette. I wanted them to sense that
this workshop was going to be different.

I had already set the ‘stage’
(the teaching space) with six tables piled with subject related science
resources and covered up with white table cloths. Students sat at these tables without knowing
what was under the cloths or what was going to be expected of them.

I made them wait to find out
about that, too.

All this was my attempt to
emulate an idea I had seen in action at a library workshop the previous fall, in
which Randy Burke Hensley was the presenter.
After the workshop facilitator introduced him Randy stepped forward and
without saying a word began to sing.
That’s it. I can’t remember what
the song was but it was an oldie and he did it without music
accompaniment. It was terrific. He was good. And it set our expectations
about what this workshop was going to be about and how it was going to
unfold. The workshop was about
information literacy (how to teach library/research skills to students) but
with the focus on how to do it with some creative flair, stepping away from
typical library orientations of watching or trying follow along canned searches
of databases and online catalogues. Ho
hum, indeed.

I liked his opener but the
only way I can carry a tune is in a bucket.
So, I needed to find another course of action. The riddle was my attempt.

Did it work?

Some students did come to
look at Hooked on Riddles so I took that to mean they thought it was worthwhile knowing about.

The workshops were certainly
very vibrant, dynamic and loud. There
was lots of playing with the kits, discussion, and students browsing through
picture books and professional resources.
Feedback from the instructors was positive. The covered tables generated a sense of curiosity and anticipation.

And, no one told me that I sucked.So all-in-all not too
bad. I wouldn't do this in every
workshop but it was a good exercise to put myself out there, a reminder that this is
what good teachers do everyday.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Out of Line: Growing up Soviet by Tina Grimberg is a short memoir of her childhood
growing up in Kiev, Ukraine under Soviet rule in the 1960s
and 70s.

It reads pretty much as you’d
expect: things are grim, life is not easy, there are long lines for everything
with no guarantees of actually acquiring anything, consumer products are
usually expensive and cheaply made, making head way requires knowing people in
the right places or having enough money to bribe anyone with a modicum of power,
information about the west is limited and correspondence with those from
outside the Soviet Union is censored. Many of her stories seem to take place in the
winter, giving us the feeling of being cold on top of everything else.

But from Tina’s perspective
as a child, this is just everyday life and doesn't seem so horrible. She comes from a loving family and many of
her stories revolve around her parents and grandparents. She’s fascinated with family history and
loves to be regaled with stories that tell of other times, especially those that
are about World War II. We get glimpses
into everyday activities, of going to school and visiting friends and relatives
with insightful observations, elements of humour and sometimes sadness.

It’s interesting to read
about how her family deals with being Jewish and trying to minimize recognition
of their heritage. Practising or
following any religion was strongly discouraged by the state. Being Jewish during the war was particularly
difficult since Jews were targeted by both the Nazis and the Soviets. Many of Tina’s family members changed their Jewish-sounding
names (Sarah or Ginda) to more Russian-sounding ones (Svetlana or Inna). Being identified as a ‘kike’ is insulting if
not risky.

Despite of the hardships,
inconveniences and repression, Tina loves her family, school and country. She is proud that the Soviets stood up the
Nazis. It is a very difficult decision for
everyone in her family to emigrate, but one that will give Tina and her sister
more opportunities for a better life.
Being branded a ‘traitor’ by schoolmates and neighbours is difficult to
bear.

I would recommend this book
for middle school readers. Its
unfortunate the reading level is a bit high for those in grade 3 as this would
be a nice fit with the social studies curriculum that looks at life in the
Ukraine, but I would recommend grade 3 teachers reading it themselves for
context or reading aloud the occasional passage.

Rabbi Tina Grimberg acknowledges
the friends who encouraged her to record her memories and I'm hoping she may be
prevailed upon to continue writing about her life as a new immigrant.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

*The title:
Rabbityness. I know it’s not a word but
it captures perfectly what this book is about – the qualities and activities
that contribute to the identity of this particular rabbit. Whether he’s jumping, burrowing or washing
his ears (typical rabbit business) or making music or painting (non-traditional
rabbit business) this is a rabbit who knows what it takes to make him happy.

*The art work: I'm guessing
that the art work is done as watercolours, ink, pencil, and maybe
acrylics. (The author doesn't have a
description included, unfortunately.)
But the medium isn't as important as the effect. The black (inky?) rabbit is an inviting
creature that creates bright splash-happy, psychedelic paintings that explode
across the pages. While making music,
the resulting sounds are multi-coloured notes that pack the page. The excitement and feeling of compelling joy
spreads to the other rabbits.

*The message: I guess this might be considered the story of
the picture book but I got too caught up with the idea about how one rabbit has
a lasting impact on his fellow rabbits.
Inexplicably, the black rabbit disappears one day. Though the other rabbits search for him he
remains missing. This is never
explained. But that’s not what the book
is about. It’s about what the black
rabbit leaves behind.

You see, after the other
rabbits realized black rabbit isn't coming back and they sink into a dreary,
grey funk, they decide to go down into black rabbit’s burrow, down through a
deep, dark hole to see what he’s left behind.
And, this turns out to be the gift of creativity, the things to make
their own music and art. Unrabbity endeavours are abound as all the rabbits
explore their creative sides as they fondly remember the black rabbit. For me, this was more message than story.

*The metaphor: Overall, the
idea of individual creativity having the power to affect others is offered here
in a beautifully illustrated picture book.
Also offered is that there can be a lasting impact, a legacy to be
appreciated from those that came before. Also, that life goes on and we can
continue creating our own happiness. And,
that jumping into the unknown can lead to unexpected places and pleasures.

Hop on into Rabbityness. This one will have applications across the grade levels.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Jim Henson wasn't a diarist as such, but he did keep a ‘little red book’ in which he
chronologically recorded significant events in his life that included family
milestones and business highlights. His
daughter, Lisa Henson writes in the forward that:

He kept all those dates in a simple
chronology, mixing family and projects indiscriminately. It shows how blurry the boundaries were in
his mind between his creative and family life, and these juxtapositions are
interesting on a very personal level. – p.8

And that’s
exactly what this book does: presenting bits of Henson’s life as a montage of
sketches, photos, posters, playbills, storyboards, TV stills, and other various
visual detritus. The book is broken into segments roughly covering 10 year
chunks (give or take a year or two) starting in 1954 until just prior to his
death in 1990. Each segment is given a
brief introduction to provide some context and continuity for Henson’s
work. Each double spread of pages
focuses on a short period of time within a year with a brief description of
what’s going on and what the pictures on these pages are about.

I can’t say I
was ever a real Henson groupie. I liked
the Muppets well-enough but just missed the Sesame Street
hype. My sister was more into it and
that’s how I got side-swiped by Ernie and Bert, Oscar the Grouch and the Cookie
Monster. Cute, fun, but little kids’
stuff. I was ‘way too old’ (8 or 9 years
old -ha).

As an adult I
knew about his big film productions, The
Dark Crystal and Labyrinth and
was aware of his other TV efforts Fraggle
Rock and Dinosaurs. Again, it was cursory awareness with a
dash of appreciation for the art work that was more than apparent. Just not high on my list of priorities
though.

Nevertheless, this was an interesting book.

Going through
this album-like book made me feel that I had missed out on something ‘big’. His creative genius is very evident and I'm amazed at how busy this guy was. Reading
about his work in this way, based on the journal that Henson himself created as
a chronological record, gives the impression that he goes from one project to
the next without pause, that he’s always engaged with creating something,
usually with other people, that life was go, go, go. We don’t hear of doubts, struggles or
failures. Maybe he didn't have any. Maybe he never ran out of ideas or
energy. Maybe he never had a conflict
between family life and work. Maybe these are the events that were not recorded
because that’s not what he wanted to focus on or remember, or maybe it was the
author’s decision to omit these moments. Lots of maybes.

This book may
give us some insider information about the creative process for many of
Henson’s well known works, but doesn't really give us much insight into who he
was. There are bits and pieces related
to his family life, like pictures of his family and children, but the focus
really is on his work. He seems like a
nice man, very likeable and a great collaborator. Maybe he was too busy to have angst-filled
moments that often plague creative genius.
I think this really has more to do with how this information was derived
from ‘the little red book’ and less about who Jim Henson was.

Though an
enjoyable meander through Henson’s creative life, this isn't a definitive book
about either his life or work. It’s a
sampling that emphasises Henson’s amazing ability to create puppets that people
of all ages could connect with because he made them seem real. (Kermit the Frog to replace Johnny Carson,
anyone?)

I’d recommend
this book for older readers who are super keen on Jim Henson, his Muppets, his
movies, those interested in the creative process, or if you want to revisit some
youthful moments meandering down Sesame Street.

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About Me

I am the reference coordinator at The Doucette Library of Teaching Resources, a curriculum library in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary.
I love connecting education students and teachers with engaging and exciting resources for classroom teaching. I believe that resources that get me excited (or those that get you excited) are the ones with the best potential to get kids interested in learning about - well, everything. Finding those books that connect to the real world are the ones I enjoy promoting the most.